Eating Styles: Spring Vegetables Edition!

There’s a reason we don’t get excited about vegetables. That ad on the side of the public bus isn’t a picture of a big, juicy spear of asparagus. Homer Simpson doesn’t have disturbingly passionate dreams about fresh radishes. Rather, American mass media emphasizes the greasy, the sugary and the packaged/processed. This is the reason, my fellow college drunkies, the one food item on your mind when you’re stumbling home at 2 am is a McDonald’s breakfast burrito and not a bunch of rhubarb.

Fortunately, there is one cultural entity that has, to some extent, succeeded in popularizing vegetables on a national scale: the farmer’s market. The farmer’s market is back in my town, but unfortunately the pickings aren’t as rich and varied as they are in the fall. Still, there are some great spring vegetables to choose from if you look hard enough.

What is your favorite spring vegetable, So Good readers? Do you even know which ones are spring vegetables? Don’t feel too bad if you don’t – I didn’t. My mom-the-food-scientist gave these to me. So, if you’re a vegetable-savvy farmer’s market frequenter, choose your favorite spring vegetable below. If you’re not, there’s a nice little voting option for you, too.

I love radishes…dredged in a little salt and chased with beer, or shaved on to a salad. Rhubarb is wonderful, too, but as far as I know only baked in cinnamon, sugar and oatmeal for dessert. Asparagus and peas are the bonafide stand alone veggies you can serve with dinner.